Summa D75 vs. Roland GX-24

[Walldog 0]

I've been a sign painter for the last 25+ years and have decided to enter the vinyl sign market.

Within the next two weeks I'm going to purchase either a Summa D75 (30") or a Roland GX-24 vinyl cutter.

I have a 13.3" Apple MacBook computer at the moment and have been told that electronic sign making is generally a Windows environment and support will be better. The local sign supply company from whom I'll be buying the cutter told me that they don't support the use of Macintosh computers. So I'm planning to buy a new 16.4" Sony F series laptop computer and install FlexiLetter 8.6 for Windows software and the bundled software from whichever cutter I buy.

The Summa cutter is going to cost a few hundred dollars more. However, it is a larger cutter and I've been told, and have read on sign making forums, that the tracking and accuracy of cutting is better with the Summa than with the Roland.

My questions are as follows:

1) What do you feel are the differences in quality between the Summa cutter and the Roland cutter?

2) What are the differences in tracking and general reliability, durability, and life expectancy between the Summa cutter and the Roland cutter?

3) Are there any other software programs that I should consider installing, or consider avoiding, along with FlexiLetter?

4) What else besides cutting vinyl letters and graphics can I do with a Summa D75 or a Roland GX-24 cutter?

Thanks.